A Planetary Sense of Being—Part III: Planetary Magnetism

from the Tympanum at St. Foy in Conques

…without this relation with a higher energy, life has not much meaning… A certain current, a certain magnetism, needs to be created in which each person finds his place, that is, the place which will permit the current to be better established. Our whole responsibility is here.

The traditional ways all recognized and served this aim in a manner that corresponded to the development of people in a given place and period. Today we need to find again the contact with this energy.

Jeanne De Salzmann, The Reality of Being, p. 199

Let’s discuss how the magnetism on the planetary level functions relative to living organisms, and how that relates to man.

 In living organisms of lower orders, magnetism and the sensation thereof serves to locate the animals. By coming into alignment with the magnetic forces of the planet as a consciously sensed presence, they know where they are. 

Knowing where one is is essential to life function; and in the case of lower animals, this phenomenon manifests primarily as an external source, because lower animals (one and two brained creatures) don’t have the capacity for the development of astral (planetary) or solar being. While the concentrations of harmonic vibration in these creatures are still absolutely divine (they all arise from the intelligence expressed in DNA) there are limits on their existence expressed by the length of their life spans. 

Magnetic sensation of being in these creatures is attached to moving and emotional centers, because those are the only two centers that they have with which to be. Their sensation of Being helps them to know where to go seasonally and in terms of nest locations; and it helps them to know where to go in terms of mating—discovery of and attraction to members of the opposite sex. 

As well as developing and defining their outward capacities for movement, animals develop an inward capacity that senses their emotive center of gravity. While the capacity for movement through the sensation of the Earth’s magnetic field is well known and has been studied, science has not spent enough time yet understanding how magnetism affects attraction and reproduction in the lower forms of life. Eventually, this will become better understood.

In the case of three brained beings, however, this function of magnetic sensation—called the organic sensation of being in the Gurdjieff work—serves to locate the creatures that experience it inwardly. 

That is to say, it is still a navigational tool, but it becomes a navigational tool for understanding, not just movement and emotion.

 The organic sensation of Being must be developed in order to have a real sense of where one stands within one’s Being relative to both higher and lower forces. It functions as an intelligence or mind from a higher level; within the organic sense of being, we become individuals — we are single beings with a sense of our place, not divided creatures with fractured perceptions and non-integrated intelligences. As Gurdjieff said, your organic sensation of Being creates your individuality. 

It serves as a locating device for our spiritual intelligence.

 This organic sensation of magnetic fields from the astral level affects the inward quality of being, not the outward. It’s the first faculty through which we can begin to do what Gurdjieff told everyone constantly: 

sense your own nothingness. 

Please read this particular phrase a second time and see that he did not say we should think about our own nothingness. 

He  said we must sense it. 

The only faculty with which we can sense this nothingness is our sensation. We can think about all we like; but until we sense it, we don’t develop the harmonic resonance capable of connecting with the ability to feel it — which is, of course, where all of this effort ultimately needs to go, because feeling is the first emanation of an order that belongs to the solar level, the level of 12 laws. If you were wondering why “hydrogens 12,” Gurdjieff’s arcane numeric signifier for material from a higher level of an important kind, featured so prominently in his discussions with Ouspensky, it’s because those hydrogens are the solar hydrogens and represent the finer material at a more intensified rate of vibration which we most need to acquire and concentrate within Being.

The subject is fascinating, because the question of harmonic vibration, sensation, magnetic fields, the ray of creation, the law of octaves, and so on are all intimately connected. Studying these matters through the practical vehicle of sensation and feeling, as well as the theoretical vehicle of the mind, begins to reveal how complete and comprehensive Gurdjieff’s cosmological system is in understanding why we are what we are.

Part four of five of in this series will publish on June 5. 

Wishing the best for you on this day,

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.